Belzac DeMortis
Summary Tall with an average build, Belzac despite his age is considered one of the finest fighters that still has ties to the Alterac nation. Born before the events of the first war, his family like the other Alterac noble caste sided with the Horde during the second war. Caught during the riots at Tyr's Hand, Belzac was thrown into a prison cell in Lordaeron City and condemned to rot for the rest of his life. This would have been his fate however as luck would have it he escaped during the fall of the Capital many years later at the hands of the Scourge. Without a home, any form of wealth or a family. Belzac travelled to Stormwind and took up the path of a mercenary and trader, moving from town to town doing what work needed to be done, while also selling what goods he had obtained during his travels. It was during one of these ventures, a particularily dangerous smuggling run into Gilneas, where he was bitten by a feral worgen and turned. Captured by the Gilneans, he was given the cure and forced to fight along side them against the Forsaken, only to leave the country behind when it fell before the Forsaken War Machine. Recently he has been approached by Lady Khaston, a woman in the service of the Order of Goldrinn, who has revealed to him that he is by birthright the Lord of House Ashmore, a blood relative on his mothers side to an ancient Gilnean family. Taking up the title offered to him with some reluctance, Belzac has taken his place as the leader of House Ashmore and also taken a seat on the Stormwind Council of Nobles. His mercenary days mostly behind him, he is still a soldier, but far more entwined in political affairs. Appearance Belzac stands at roughly 5'9" and weighs around 184 lbs. As a worgen he has two forms, his human form and his worgen form: 'Human Form' Tall and powerfully built despite his history, Belzac is a classic example of a well-built human. Whether it is the worgen curse affecting his body, or just natural growth combined with his own activities, he has a well defined build which is clearly visible when he is not dressed in full armor. While he is certainly not bulging out of his clothes, his body is layered with thick muscles held in place with well tanned, and more importantly soft skin. His face is gaunt, like that of a man haunted by something or by someone, which is even further emphasized by his long black hair, now with streaks of grey, which flows evenly around his neck or at times is held back in a ponytail. He also seems quite serious, at least most of the time, and rarely smiles unless he is in familiar company, which paints him as the brooding type compared to the other more jovial citizens of Stormwind. 'Worgen Form' When assuming his worgen form, a great deal of change comes over the man known as Belzac. His skin, once well tanned, quickly changes from soft flesh to brown fur. His face, violently changes from a gaunt, troubled noble to that of a wolf, sharp teeth with four fangs replacing his usual set of pearly whites. His eyes become larger and more similar to orange than brown in coloration. All this is framed by a coarse mane of thick brown hair which replaces his silky locks. Where he once had hands, he now has claws, each elongated finger now tipped with a razor sharp, jet black nail able to rend flesh with ease. His legs become double jointed like that of a wolf and his feet grow into paws, his five toes morphing into a set of three each tipped once again with a jet black nail, yet unlike those on his hands, these do not appear to be nearly as sharp. The only thing that he retains in his form, are his muscles, still large and now barely contained beneath his fur, the worgen curse has augmenting them further making him much stronger and faster than he ever could be as a human. Personality Belzac is a very serious man who has been forced to endure much over his life. As a result he has come to find that locking his emotions away in a steel box is often the best solution to avoid any form of attachment or pain and with that always in mind, he rarely smiles or socializes unless he is in good company or considers a person an exception to the masses. While he is quiet and withdrawn in a social life, his attitude and presence changes completely when he is at the meetings of the Council of Nobles or leading the forces of House Ashmore. As a political and military leader, Belzac has a very commanding presence and can often be seen barking orders to those under his authority, orders that are followed to the letter. Despite this commanding presence on the field, it is also here, surrounded by his men that he shows a rare gem of his personality, approval and to a point, happiness. Background Early Life Belzac DeMortis was born to his father Lord Viktor DeMortis and his mother Elyana Ashmore at his family estate a small plot of land buried in the Alterac Mountains. He was the youngest of his family, with an older brother Markus DeMortis and a sister Vanessa DeMortis. Like most nobles, he had a quiet and restricted upbringing until he was age seven when his childhood was turned into one of constant training with his father and Markus. As one of Aidan Perenoldes best assassins Viktor wanted nothing more than to see his sons risen to the same professional skill that he was so often praised for. As the years passed, he became quite the accomplished assassin, already having five kills under his belt at the age of fifteen, and while his training in the arts of assassination were important and a priority for his life, he was also trained in the arts of diplomacy. While he would never be the Lord of the DeMortis house, it was expected of him to know more than just how to kill and so he was given the finest education money could buy with tutors brought in from Lordaeron City itself and even from the mage city of Dalaran, although Belzac never managed to gain an affinity for magic. Two years after his fifteenth birthday at the age of seventeen Belzac would learn that the Grand Alliance had been formed to combat the Orcish Horde which had risen up in the south and sacked the nation of Stormwind, killing and burning all in its path. He had also learned that his nations leader Aiden Perenolde had pledged the support of Alterac, with some reluctance to the war effort. Initially pleased at this news, Belzac knew that there was more to this than a simple pledge of support and he would find out a few weeks later when Aidan Perenolde gathered his most loyal supporters, his family included, and informed them that he planned to aid the Horde in the conquest of the Alliance. His token forces would remain on the frontlines to continue to give the illusion of his nations support while he would send others, including his family to sabotage the Alliance war effort. This began what would in a few months become the downfall of Alterac. Belzac was sent on several missions to alliance camps where he would poison or burn supplies, or to cripple the a unit by assassinating its commander. During the months of his service, he killed over ten alliance commanders, and torched supplies that crippled the Alliance war effort. Combined with the savagry of the Horde, the Alliance was forced to fall back time and time again and so it continued until his most important mission and his last. Tyr's Hand. His mission was a simple one, he and several others were to incite riots among the peasentry of Tyr's Hand. As a central hub for not only security but also trade, a open rebellion would utterly decimate the Alliance's supply trains and cause the grand alliance to falter for perhaps the last time allowing the Horde to crush them entirely. As the operation commenced the riots themselves became a complete success, with the peasants falling into chaos. What Belzac and the others had not counted on however was the presence of a new commander. This commander had risen through the ranks of the Alliance rather easily, he had commanded battles which had crushed the Horde on several fields and now his attention was placed on Tyr's Hand. Riding in with well over a dozen knights, he crushed the riots in a manner which could only be described as brutally efficient. Many loyal alterac soldiers were slain on the field and Belzac, wounded by an spear thrust to the leg as he turned to run, was captured and taken into custody. This was the turning point for Alterac, the point of it's destruction. The capture of Belzac and the slain alterac soldiers had finally revealed the treachery of Aiden Perenolde, and so it was that the orders went out, all Alterac forces were to be arrested and any who resisted were to be killed by order of the King. The Alterac forces were decimated by this order, and while Belzac would not know it at the time, his entire family had been put to the sword. His father and brother, who had both been working together to sabotage the efforts of the front line combat units were slain while resisting arrest and his sister threw herself from a Dalaran tower rather than be captured for attempting to summon demons into the city. His mother, having lost her husband and three children, would also kill herself out of grief, leaving Belzac as the last of his line. For Belzac however, his fate was different. He refused to talk, and his efforts in sabotage remained undiscovered by the Alliance commanders. For inciting a riot he was sentenced to rot in a Lordaeron prison cell for the rest of his life and so at the age of seventeen, Belzac was thrown into a dark cell, with only a few narrow slots of light to see by and there he would remain for the rest of his life... or so he thought. After The War Ninteen years passed very slowly for Belzac. He got very little sun, prison food was beyond disgusting considering what he had been used to in his prior life and in his small cell, he performed exercises to keep himself fit and in shape, refusing to fall into the despair that was his fate. He was now thirty six years old and he had heard all the news as it had arrived from the jailer, who he had become good friends with in the time that he had been in his small cell. His family was dead, his nation destroyed save for the village of Strahnbrad and the Horde had been given a crushing defeat, sent all the way back to the hole which they had crawled from in the south. There was also troubling news about a plague which was ravaging the country, although the jailer could not tell him much more than that. A few months later, Belzac woke to total chaos. He could hear the familiar sounds of battle coming from the rooms above, although he did not at the time know why. It was only a few moments later that the jailer arrived with the keys to his cell. Unlocking it and throwing open the door, the jailer told him what had happened. That Prince Arthas had killed his father and unleashed an army of undead soldiers against the city, that Lordaeron was burning and the people were being killed in the street, cut down by skeletal warriors. Arthas himself was aiding them, killing the population that he had once considered his own people. Showing Belzac to an escape route out of the prison cells, the Jailer told him to get to safety before closing the door behind him. Belzac, unable to go back and help his friend, had no choice but to run, and so run he did. Months later, he would arrive in Stormwind, a refugee from the battered kingdom of Lordaeron. Amazingly the guards helped him like they helped every other refugee, it was then that Belzac realised a simple truth, that down here no one knew who he was or what he had done. He was free to live a new life, away from the persecution of the north. So that is what he did, starting by looking for work, which he found in a clinic that was established in the park district of Stormwind. He became good friends with the owner, a young female doctor by the name of Tamrissa and he aided her in every aspect of her work, learning much more about healing than he had ever cared to know in his prior life. He also took up a blade and some armor, when he could afford it and began to work as a mercenary of sorts. He would travel from town to town, offering aid for coin while also giving medical attention to those that were wounded. Eventually, years after his arrival in Stormwind, he and Tamrissa would fall in love and marry, their ceremony taking place under a tree at the base of Teldrassil. Life it seemed was perfect for him, and while he still worked hard and travelled from place to place where he was needed, he would often return to the clinic to be with his wife, spending weeks if not months by her side before going back to his work, now adding trading to his list of skills. When he learned that Gilneas was in need of supplies through a smuggler who had just returned from a very profitable venture in the country, Belzac was quick to capitalize on potential profit. Kissing his wife goodbye, he travelled north to Menethil Harbor, before hiring a small boat, and taking the rest of the journey to Gilneas. However when he arrived he found that the place was not what he had expected. It was deserted with people shut in their houses, and soon he would learn why. Sometime after the fall of Lordaeron, a race of beasts that he had killed in Duskwood had risen up in Gilneas, these beasts or worgen as they were called, swarmed over the country like ants on a corpse and during his bid to get to the safety of Gilneas City, he was bitten by one of the creatures. It didn't take long for the bite to fully manifest and for him to turn into one of the beasts, abandoning his goods and his life as he knew it, he became a feral just like the many others. He would have remained that way too, if it were not for the Gilnean hunters that caught him in one of their traps. Taking him to a isolated village, he was injected with a alchemical potion which restored his mental state, although it did not restore his human form. Brought up to speed with what had happened in Gilneas since the second war by some of the locals, Belzac tried to make the most of what he was by aiding the people, only to become embroiled in another invasion, this one by the undead, called the Forsaken by the people. Fighting along side the Gilneans, Belzac would aid them against the undead all the way to the final battle of Gilneas City, where King Genn Greymane's sone Liam would be slain by Sylvannas Windrunner, the leader of the undead forces. Eventually the surviving Gilneans would abandon the country, unable to defeat the surging tide of Forsaken combined with the armies of the Horde, which Belzac would learn through battle, had allied with the undead armies. Sailing to Teldrassil with the rest of the Gilnean people, Belzac would come to learn that an even greater tragedy had befallen the land. A great catalysm, an earth shattering event which had breached the greymane wall, had ravaged the known world, almost every land on both continents had been damaged by the event, with most of the damage being caused by the cataclysm's creator, the black dragon known as Deathwing. Returning to Stormwind to find his wife and let her know that while changed he was still alive, he was heartbroken to see what had happened to Stormwind in his absence. The dragon Deathwing, had flown over the city while he was in Gilneas, and using his immense power, he had destroyed the entire park, leaving nothing but a smoking crater where once there was beauty and peace. He would learn from a survivor that Tamrissa had been at the Clinic when the dragon had arrived, and that she and many others had perished in the destruction. Entirely broken by this news, Belzac would wallow in despair for the longest time before finally beginning his life anew, once again taking up his sword and armor to fight as a mercenary for the Alliance. In Recent Months - Currently After Belzac returned to the life of a mercenary and trader following the catalysm and the death of his wife, he began to wander more so than usual and take more dangerous routes that most sensible traders wouldn't attempt. One of these routes, which would take him from Stormwind, through the Redridge Mountains and into the Burning Steppes, would introduce him to another who would seriously impact his life, a noblewoman by the name of Lyra Madoran. This noblewoman and her companions and guards were staying in Lakeshire as he was, and he talked to several of them while he was there including for a brief time a woman by the name of Victoriea. Never expecting to see any of them again, knowing that his path took him to many different locations, he did not get to know them all well and when he left in the morning, he did so without looking back. Of course, as luck would have it he would meet them all again, many weeks later in the flooded town of Menethil. While there he got to know Lady Lyra Madoran better, learning that she was returning to Stonehearth, a settlement owned by her husband Lord Darion Madoran in the far north. Surprised to hear that any of the Lords had survived in the north, save for those who joined with the Argent Dawn, Belzac inquired further into their situation and offered his skill with trading and his sword arm to Lady Madoran if she saw fit to use it. She turned him down initially, having no need for his skills in either regard, but he left the offer open, giving her the option to accept it at a later time if she so wished. Also while in the flooded city, being stuck there for days due to the worsening weather, he became better aquainted with the fighter Victoriea, and in her he saw a kindred spirit, a woman with a passion that matched that of his late wife. Thinking nothing more of it after the few days had passed, he moved on once again, travelling across the great sea to Kalimdor to trade and work. He would be gone many weeks, close to a month even before he would return to the Eastern Kingdoms. His return to the Eastern Kingdoms after that time would give him yet another encounter with Victoriea, a woman he was beginning to feel close to as their meetings became more and more frequent. Eventually a relationship would form between the two, and he would abandon his work as a trader to ride with her willingly, not under her command or under any command, but as a volunteer. This relationship however would not last long, a bad choice of words combined with the pressing advances of another man, a younger noble would tear them apart as she sought company in his arms and while initially bitter about the loss of yet another woman he cared for and the betrayal that he felt sting so deeply, he would move on although more so out of disgust, unwilling to be in the presence of the noble who wronged him. As luck would have it however, his bad choice of words, while not granting him any favors with those who had wronged him, gained him substantial attention in the eyes of yet another noble. Jaxson Sunshield, of House Sunshield drew him aside after his brutal, yet honest words and offered him a place in their ranks, an offer which Belzac gladly accepted. Being treated like a brother more so than something to be used then simply cast aside, Belzac quickly gained favor within the House and stood beside them during a few particularily brutal campaigns, one in particular occuring in Karazhan. Within the depths of the dungeons and catacombs beneath the haunted tower, Belzac and the small army he had joined with would face untold horrors. He would leave there by magical means, spirited away by the spellcasting of a greater evil, but not before having his arm shattered and his face splashed with acidic bile by the events that took place within the corrupted caverns. Upon returning once again to the Eastern Kingdoms, having found himself sent all the way to Ahn'Qiraj by the spellcasting of the greater evil they had encountered beneath the tower, Belzac would once again have a run in with Lady Madoran although he would not know it at first. The two were still not on the best of terms, he had savagly insulted a noble she respected and cared for, however she had called for the aid of House Sunshield to hide her away and protect her. He would of course learn of all this later, for the moment she was simply a serving girl in his eyes, her face hidden away and her once noble clothing replaced with the most common of outfits. A number of smaller details eventually gave away her true identity and so Belzac would later approach her at what they considered the safe settlement of Kirthaven within the Highlands of Khaz Modan. Learning much of what had happened in his absence not only to her but to others, he swore to aid her as he had done in Menethil. Unfortunately this too he would fail at. In one swift assault the Horde would attack Kirthaven, and while Belzac fought off the grunts that caused chaos in the town, a group of blood elf wizards would teleport in behind them, kidnap Lady Madoran and then teleport away to safety. After such a crushing defeat on his conscience, Belzac left House Sunshield and returned once more to Stormwind, having a few encounters in the meantime with people he had met during his time with Victoriea but mostly keeping to himself, his focus entirely spent on finding a way to track down Lady Madoran and the elves that took her. He did not however, have a way to gain such information, as he had no power to request favors and certainly no money in which to buy them. This of course would change too, with several events occuring in sequence that would give him not only the influence he needed, but also the gold that was needed so very much. Firstly, he would recieve a missive from a Leander Smith, writing to inform him that as the last surviving DeMortis, that his family estate was waiting for him to claim it. Inside as he would come to find out on another venture to the north, was his families vault and in it, a substanial amount of wealth, all having been collected by his family over the years. Then, after once again returning to Stormwind, he would be approached by a Lady Khaston, who revealed to him that he was the last blood descendant of House Ashmore on his mothers side, and while the House was Gilnean by official ties, the recent inclusion of the Gilneans into the alliance and the seniority of House Ashmore gave him a seat on the Council of Nobles, a seat which he gladly took. With the power and money at his disposal he began to search for Lady Madoran, although unfortunately he turned up no leads as to her whereabouts himself, with his only aid being Lord Aegran Blackfallow of the Argent Crusade who he was still waiting to hear back from in regards to any news he had managed to obtain with Crusade contacts. Still the wars waged on, the war with the horde in Kalimdor, the war with the Forsaken in Gilneas, the war with the remenants of the scourge in the plaguelands. Belzac grew tired of the constant fighting, the constant wars which he had been either hearing of, or involved in for the majority of his life. Making an important decision that would, although he did not know it at the time, greatly impact his future self, Belzac decided to step down as the leader of House Ashmore after only a few months leading the great house. While he was still the last of the Ashmore bloodline and still the rightful leader, he decided to appoint one of the most dedicated and trusted men that he knew in his place, Ginlan Redmane, who became the new lord of House Ashmore. Finally after saying his goodbyes to those he had come to know as family, Belzac departed from Gilneas, making his way to Menethil harbor where he would purchase a small ship, enough for one man to sail without trouble. Still in preparations, he has yet to leave the port, but soon he will set sail in an attempt to find some peace in the calm serenity of the ocean. Category:Alliance Category:Worgen Category:Move to Archive